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Excalibur 32-bit

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jgpaiva:
now what would be really good would be a calculator that gives roman numerals as the answer, i like the idea of 2 + 2 = IV   ;D
-Grorgy (July 01, 2007, 03:12 AM)
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Incredible what one can find on the internet... Roman Calculator ;)

f0dder:
I still don't think RPN is more logic - you have to break down expressions into fragments with RPN. HP probably just wrote that blurb because it's easier to do RPN than a complex expression evaluator ;)

Grorgy:
Hey thanks jgpaiva, thats really good, totally useless but fun, i like that  ;D

steeladept:
I still don't think RPN is more logic - you have to break down expressions into fragments with RPN. HP probably just wrote that blurb because it's easier to do RPN than a complex expression evaluator ;)

-f0dder (July 01, 2007, 04:30 AM)
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I agree...And the idea of the RPN saving keystrokes is rubbish as well.  After each number you hit enter, then after the operator you hit enter.  So for 2 + 2 = 4 you end up with 6 keystrokes vs. 4 w/ a standard calculator.  Now for a much more complex equation, you still hit the enter after each keystroke, and unless you have a great many nested sub-equations requiring several Parentheses in a row, then you really loose keystrokes.  Even in those situations it is not as much a savings as you are led to believe.

Another point to argue is the more natural method as taught in school on paper.  I don't know what school(s) they are talking about, but I know a simple algebraic calculator allows me to enter the equation EXACTLY like I was taught in school.

The only "advantage" I can see is seeing the intermediate steps, but even this is trivially completed with a standard algebraic calculator.

So back to the original question - Why RPN?

mouser:
i do find RPN to be a beautiful and elegant solution to handling parentheses.  The stack-like process should warm the heart of any programmer.

maybe rpn was originally used on calculators (i had it on my hp 48cv) because it made parsing expressions with parentheses much much easier.  very easy to implement a stack on a primitive calculator.. not so easy to implement a calculator that can accept very long expressions with ( and ) and then report unbalanced parentheses errors, etc.

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